The Third Wave experiment
example · Ron Jones / Cubberley High School experiment ·
retold in 4 talks
A California high school teacher simulating a proto-fascist movement to show students how easily Nazism emerges; students spontaneously denounced one another. Žižek rejects the liberal lesson (the fascist beast lurks in everyone) and argues the experiment falsely equates emancipatory discipline with right-wing authoritarianism.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 4
“I totally reject this reading. I think that this experiment was deeply mystifying.”
“Strength through discipline, strength through community, strength through action, strength through pride. I'm sorry to tell you but if this describes an emancipatory revolutionary community I totally subscribe to it.”
“I'm more on the side of the students here... what if the authoritarian personality which exploded here is the repressed obverse of the liberal open personality itself?”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
contents · one story, 3 jobsuses
community of freaks
×1
authoritarian personality
×1
totalitarianism
×1
Its cast and sources
populated by
Ron Jones3Claude Lanzmann3Marcion of Sinope1Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge1Theodore Sturgeon1Bryan Ward-Perkins1Charles Freeman1Dietrich of Bern1
alongside works
Every retelling 4
A California high school teacher simulating a proto-fascist movement to show students how easily Nazism emerges; students spontaneously denounced one another. Žižek rejects the liberal lesson (the fascist beast lurks in everyone) and argues the experiment falsely equates emancipatory discipline with right-wing authoritarianism., illustrating anti-totalitarianism,emancipatory discipline,ideology
In 1967 a Palo Alto teacher launched a student movement with totalitarian discipline to show how Germans could have obeyed Hitler; the experiment spiralled out of control with students denouncing each other. Žižek rejects the liberal moral (we're all latent fascists) and argues the mottoes equally describe emancipatory communist community., illustrating community of freaks,liberal mystification,collective discipline without totalitarianism
History teacher Ron Jones at a Palo Alto high school started a mock fascist movement ('Third Wave') to show students how Hitler worked; students became so committed they denounced peers, until Jones terminated it after four days. Žižek sides with the students against the liberal 'Lord of the Flies' reading, arguing the experiment reveals the repressed of liberalism, not an external barbarism., illustrating authoritarian personality,liberalism and totalitarianism,the missing third subject
History teacher Ron Jones created a mock fascist movement ('The Third Wave') at Palo Alto's Cubberley High School to show how Germans could accept Nazism; students became enthusiastically involved, denouncing peers, until he terminated it. Liberals celebrated it as proof of universal fascist potential. Žižek calls it a liberal fake., illustrating authoritarian personality / liberal personality,fascism as return of liberal repressed,Third Wave